Now that we’re officially in the summer part of the calendar, there aren’t multiple games each week to write about, over-analyze and turn into predictions.
Luckily, Congress is giving us a matchup worth watching.
Most college sports fans have heard about the Protect College Sports Act, formerly called the Save College Sports Act, and know the broad strokes of that proposal.
That bill is still standing in one corner. Now there’s another one in the opposite corner.
Senator Tommy Tuberville introduced the Student-Athlete Act this week. His bill is surfacing now because some lawmakers want a simpler, less sweeping approach to college sports reform. It has a much narrower scope, focusing mostly on eligibility and transfer rules.
On the Senate floor, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) says he cannot support the Protect College Sports Act, as he stands between two displays: on the right, his narrow Student Athlete Act (1X transfer/5-yr eligibility), and on the left, the PCSA.
"I think the bill goes too far." pic.twitter.com/UZSRgqEali
— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) June 16, 2026
What’s the Difference?
The Student-Athlete Act would give college athletes five straight years to compete, one penalty-free transfer, scholarship protection and a national rulebook, while giving the NCAA legal cover to enforce stricter transfer limits. That cover comes in the form of an antitrust exemption, something the other proposed bill would provide too. It would also preempt any state laws.
Tuberville’s version does not touch NIL, revenue sharing, agent rules, athlete protections, coaching movement, TV rights or conference structure the way the Protect College Sports Act does.
Used the right way, the transfer portal is a good thing. It can help a student-athlete find a better fit, a better opportunity, or a fresh start.
But without clear guardrails, the portal has created constant churn, destabilizing college athletics and squeezing high school… pic.twitter.com/slYcGKIttE
— Coach Tommy Tuberville (@SenTuberville) June 17, 2026
The Student-Athlete Act would implement the five-year eligibility rule the NCAA is already likely to pass this summer. It would give players a one-time penalty-free transfer, and any additional transfers would require athletes to sit out a full season. That was the rule for decades, and only graduate students could move freely.
Most notably, it would not include any rules about pooling media rights or preventing conference realignment.
End Goal Stays the Same
It would still give the NCAA what it has been begging Congress for: an antitrust exemption to make rules that turn back the clock on college sports.
The name of the bill does not matter because the antitrust exemption is the end goal. The NCAA wants to control a workforce by regulating how much money the players earn and where they can work. The other details are secondary.
Why does the NCAA want it so badly? Because it profited for decades while violating antitrust laws under the banner of amateurism. Players could not receive any share of the billions they generated for schools, conferences and the NCAA itself. They were also stuck at one school unless they were willing to miss an entire season.
Those rules only applied to student-athletes. Coaches, administrators, conference officials and NCAA officials were not bound by them. They could make whatever the market allowed and move schools without penalty.
It was the epitome of rules for thee, not for me, and the NCAA wants to return to that setup. And it wants to do it the easy way.
The Right Solution
The hard way involves a word that scares a certain segment of the country: unions.
The NCAA could get everything it wants by having student-athletes form a union and negotiate a Collective Bargaining Agreement. A CBA would set eligibility rules, transfer policies and nearly everything these congressional bills aim to address.
But a CBA would require the NCAA to give something back to the players, and that is what it does not want to do. It wants to tell athletes what to do, where to do it and how much they can profit without offering any tradeoffs.
The NCAA wants the old system back. The Student-Athlete Act is another attempt to get there.
